School of Education’s Taylor named the Society for Disability Studies first Senior Scholar

Monday, May 5, 2008, By News Staff

Patrick Farrell
(315) 443-5421

The Senior Scholar Award Committee of Society for Disability Studies (SDS) has selected Steven Taylor, professor of cultural foundations of education in Syracuse University’s School of Education and director of SU’s Center on Human Policy, Law and Disability Studies, as the first recipient of the SDS Senior Scholar Award.

According to Bruce Henderson, professor of speech communication at Ithaca College and editor of Text and Performance Quarterly, the award selection committee was uniformly laudatory about the breadth and depth of Taylor’s scholarly work, the many strong contributions he has made to the field, and the importance of his presence as a leader in the field and the impact he has had.

“While all nominations were meritorious, there was passionate and articulate agreement that [Taylor] was a superb choice for the inaugural year of the award — or any other year, for that matter,” says Henderson.

The award will be formally presented to Taylor in June at the SDS conference in New York City.

Taylor is a specialist in the inclusion and rights of people with disabilities. He conducts research, provides training and technical assistance, and disseminates information on community living arrangements for people with severe disabilities.

He is a nationally recognized authority on deinstitutionalization, school and community inclusion, disability policy, disability trends and controversies, and disability studies, and he has authored numerous books and articles on these topics.

Taylor is previously recipient of the 1997 Research Award from the American Association on Mental Retardation.

The Society for Disability Studies is a scholarly organization that is dedicated to the cause of promoting the importance of disability studies as an academic discipline. SDS seeks to augment understanding of disability in all cultures and historical periods, to promote greater awareness of the experiences of disabled people, and to advocate for social change through research, artistic production, teaching and activism.